


I Wonder How Biology Can Explain...

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, long distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 23:10:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16753249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Dan’s drunk. He’s drunk and he misses Phil, who’d fallen asleep an hour ago. He’s drunk and wishes his boyfriend wasn’t currently 300km away.A fic about long distance and Dan making an impulsive ticket purchase.





	I Wonder How Biology Can Explain...

Dan’s drunk. He’s drunk and he misses Phil, who’d fallen asleep an hour ago. He’s drunk and wishes his boyfriend wasn’t currently 300km away.

He’d gone out to pub golf with friends he doesn’t care all that much about, to drink beer and to have a late celebration of his birthday. It wasn’t their fault the celebration is two weeks late; he’d been in LA with Phil and Bryony and PJ at E3.

Not that he went into the details with these friends from home— they knew he was out of town and the excuse for a night of drinking would have to be postponed, and Dan wasn’t in a hurry to fill in the gaps.

He wasn’t in a hurry to tell them about the blowjob his boyfriend had woken him up with on his birthday before they made their way to the airport. Or about the jetlagged fuck they’d had in a hotel bed far too many hours later. Or about making out in a sheltered section of California beach beside protective towering stones like they were in the second act montage of a sepia-toned indie movie.

Even if he’d refrained from talking about those things while out at pub golf, he’s certainly thinking of them now alone in his brown bedroom. He’s wishing Phil were awake for a Skype wank. Hell, he’d take some naughty texts at this point.

He just… he misses him. It’s been seven days since he last saw Phil, and he misses him.

The alcohol is keeping his skin hot. It’s keeping his limbs tingly. It’s keeping him far more impatient than he usually is.

He’s got a train ticket up to Manchester for Sunday evening. But what does that possibly matter to Dan of late Friday night? He drunkenly types away at his keyboard, scans the timetables through squinted bleary eyes, looks at the clock and counts the hours on his fingers.

He feels a quick tightness in his stomach at the price; he really doesn’t have the money to spend. But it’s soon replaced by the adrenaline that comes at clicking “Confirm Purchase” and shutting his laptop in order to stumble and bumble around his room packing a bag for the 11 days up north.

By the time he’s laying back in his bed, there’s only about an hour’s worth of a nap to be had before he wakes up to catch his new train north.

That had seemed like plenty of time before it all ran out. Now that he’s standing in his kitchen writing a post-it for his mum explaining the change of plans, his tired body is trying to convince his infatuated brain he made a stupid decision.

He convinces his legs to get him to the train station anyways, getting off the bus three stops early to grab a very necessary coffee on the way.

He’s not even going to worry about texting Phil to clue him in on the change of plans, since he knows Phil’s been asleep this whole time anyway. And since Dan literally got the first train of the morning, Phil will be asleep through the whole of his travels. He thinks of slipping into Phil’s bed and waking him up as a complete surprise and finds himself grinning despite the delirious state of exhaustion he’s entered.

He’s sitting beside an elderly man focused intently on a Sudoku, and the landscape blurs past the train’s windows as he tries to sleep.

He’s about forty minutes from Manchester when he slips into the train toilets and tries to salvage what he can of his appearance.

He was definitely still drunk that morning, and even now he doesn’t feel as put together as he’d like. His eyes are red and puffy, his hair looks greasy, and he wishes desperately that he’d thought to shower before leaving his house. At least he’d changed his clothes.

He brushes his teeth and that alone does wonders.

He knows it’s a death sentence to his straightened hair— though his sweaty night had already done enough damage that it wasn’t truly as straight as he likes— so he runs his hand under the tap and threads his wet fingers through his hair. It’s not the same as washing it, he thinks for a moment that it might actually make his hair look worse, but eventually he manages to smooth it and then the dampness dries. And sure it’s curling, but it’ll do.

He has enough foresight to slip his shirt off before splashing water on his face, and again it’s not doing as much good as a shower would, but it’s doing enough. He feels less drunk, he feels less grimy.

By the time he’s on the bus to Rawtenstall, he’s certainly not drunk anymore. In fact, the headache searing behind his eyes and the weariness in his muscles is telling him he’s slipped into being hungover.

As desperate as he is to see Phil, at this point he’s hoping the first activity they indulge in is a goddamn nap.

The sun is finally up by the time he knocks on the Lester’s front door.

He’s suddenly nervous; surprising Phil is something he’s allowed. A level of boyfriend privilege, or something. But showing up unannounced to bother his parents so early suddenly seems like the sort of thing that would make them hate him. And Dan is desperate for Phil’s parents not to hate him. He has a vested interest.

Kath opens the door. “Dan!” She looks surprised, but she pulls him into a hug nonetheless and his relief is immediate. “We weren’t expecting you ‘til tomorrow. Phil was gonna meet you at the station.”

“I know, Mrs. Lester,” Dan says, trying to be polite through the exhaustion. “I hope it’s alright but I caught an early train and wanted to surprise him.”

“Oh dear, of course it is,” she ushers him in. She doesn’t comment on the ‘Mrs. Lester’ but he figures it’s because she’s tired as well. She’s holding a cup of coffee and dressed in a daisy-patterned robe and slippers, so even if Dan didn’t actually wake her up with his knocking he can tell she wasn’t fully awake when he dropped in. “He’s still asleep I’m afraid, you know you’d never catch him up this time of morning.”

Dan laughs, “I’m usually the same. I’m knackered, honestly.”

Kath’s laugh is warm like she really isn’t surprised. She tells Dan she’ll be out about mid-morning until dinner, so he and Phil will have to fend for themselves food-wise until then. He thanks her and drags his tired body up the stairs to Phil’s room.

Phil’s so asleep that the ghosting hints of snores are coming out of his open mouth. He’s on his back and his fringe is pushed off his face and his chest hair is visible because the duvet has been pushed down to his ribs, and Dan thinks he’s so fucking beautiful he might cry. He’s right there, close enough to touch. Finally.

He doesn’t touch, though, not right away. First he drops his bag down as quietly as he can, closes the door tight, and slips out of his shirt, skinny jeans, and pants before slipping into a pair of trackies.

Then he does touch— slowly, softly, crawling into Phil’s bed and laying tucked under his arm with his head on Phil’s chest.

He falls asleep almost instantly, and notes just before he does that Phil’s arm has tightened instinctively around him.

*

Phil is still mostly asleep, eyes still closed and brain still fuzzy, when he recognizes a familiar weight on his chest. Familiar even if he’s only felt it a handful of times, and also unexpected as he hadn’t felt it last night when he’d drifted off to sleep.

But there’s soft skin under his fingers that he knows, and curled wisps of hair under his chin that he knows, and the scent of warm is all around him. And he only knows one person in the world who smells of warm.

He wishes every morning for this to be how he wakes up, and here it is just happening— Dan, not 300km away in Wokingham, but here. In his bed, in his arms.

Maybe he’s dreaming. He’s always dreaming something golden like this. It’s when he opens his eyes each morning that the disappointing reality sets in. Yet this time, when he opens his eyes he sees what he’d been too afraid to hope for.

“Dan?” he asks, his voice croaky and his mouth thick with morning breath.

Dan stirs, grips his hold around Phil tighter, then turns his head to say, “Morning, you.”

Phil can feel his face cracking into a wide smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Caught an early train.” Dan shifts from Phil’s chest, lifting himself, until he’s laid on his side next to Phil with his neck so tempting that Phil leans forward to kiss it.

“You caught an early train,” he says, grinning and biting at Dan’s neck. He’s hardly awake; he’s hardly thought about the particulars of Dan winding up in his bed even though he’s repeated Dan’s answer. He’s just so fucking amazed Dan’s here at all.

“Your mum’s downstairs,” Dan says by way of warning when Phil bites at his shoulder.

“Don’t care,” he says, moving his mouth over to Dan’s collarbone. “Think I’m gonna wake up with you in my bed and not do something about it?” 

Dan manages to keep his noises to low grunts and sharp inhales for the most part, but when Phil’s hand finally reaches and wraps around his cock he lets out a proper moan. “Hush,” Phil says with a breathy laugh. “Keep the volume down, Danny boy.”

“Kiss me then, you tease,” Dan begs. Oh God, he’s begging— Phil turns and kisses him and he hadn’t realised until that moment just how much he’s missed Dan but now he’s breathing him in.

He kisses Dan from the practical standpoint of swallowing his moans and the primal standpoint of wanting to taste him.

He kisses Dan while he wanks him with long, dry strokes that grow shorter and less dry as he is helped along with sweat and precum and impatience.

“God, I missed you,” he says. Dan rakes the nails of his left hand down Phil’s bicep. It jolts him more awake, more alive.

“I miss you all the time,” Dan says, pulling him back to his lips.

Phil’s half convinced, between the sounds Dan’s making and the way Dan’s lips move to his neck and the way Dan’s cock feels in his hand, that he’s still dreaming. Honestly, this is too good to be true— he’d fallen asleep only a few hours ago alone and thinking he’d still have to wait another day and a half before he could have this. How could this really be happening when it’s filling out a checklist for what he dreams about whenever Dan’s back home?

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says, still dazed.

“Wanted you,” Dan grunts, “wanted this.”

“Came all the way north for a sleepy handjob, Howell?” Phil asks and huffs out a laugh at the choked sound Dan makes when he twists his wrist around Dan’s length.

“If a sleepy handjob’s all I’m getting all week I’ll be a little put out,” Dan says through whimpers which cut down the tough tone he’d been going for. “But this’ll do for now.”

“Oh, will it?”

“Mm-hmm—” Half of Dan’s assurance is lost when Phil moves to kiss him again, greedily, more awake than at any point yet this morning. His pace is relentless now, he can taste Dan’s sweat, and he’s ready for Dan to come undone.

And he does, spilling over Phil’s hand and wrenching out his name in a choked attempt at keeping relatively quiet.

Before Dan’s even caught his breath he moves his leg over Phil’s hip and shifts them until he’s straddling. Phil is ready to say something teasing when Dan kisses him, an eager sort of kiss that somehow feels hungrier than before he’d come. He moves down to Phil’s neck, to Phil’s nipples, to Phil’s ribs, biting at each of these stops which keeps Phil’s mind blank of anything except how fucking good it feels.

Phil reaches with his come-covered hand and wipes it clean against the bent knee of Dan’s trackies. “You’re vile,” Dan laughs, lifting his mouth from the jut of Phil’s hip.

“I love you,” Phil smirks.

“God, I love you,” Dan lunges back up to Phil’s mouth while his hands work to shuffle Phil’s pants lower.

When Dan moves again, he moves his entire body down Phil’s until his face is lined up with Phil’s hard, exposed cock. He tilts his doe-eyes up, and Phil really shouldn’t be feeling his stomach flip during such a charged moment. But dammit, he does.

He’s so pretty. He’s so fucking pretty.

Dan licks one solid stripe up Phil’s length without breaking eye contact, then leans back to breathe gently against the wetness, and Phil thinks he might die. It’s certainly better than the last time he thought he was going to die, when he’d passed out cold twice only three days before his birthday. Still, at least that would’ve been a quick death. This is torturous.

“Was it you that was calling me a tease earlier?” he groans.

Dan doesn't bother responding. Instead he leans to sink his mouth so far down Phil’s length that a moan rips its way from Phil’s throat and his eyes slam shut.

It’s good, it’s so fucking good to have Dan here.

How does he even live during the grey patches between visits? Fuck, what is he even doing when Dan isn’t sucking him off?

Surely it isn’t half so important as this… surely even his dreams don’t compare.

After an impossibly short amount of time, spent with Dan bobbing up and down Phil’s cock and working one of his giant hands at the base and humming out moans all the while, Phil feels his orgasm ready to rip through him. He tugs at Dan’s hair and warns him with a ragged, “’m c-close,” but Dan doesn’t lift his head. Instead he sinks lower, swallowing Phil’s come and digging his nails into the flesh of Phil’s hip.

“Fuck, Dan,” Phil groans when the gears in his brain start turning again.

“Later,” Dan smirks, leaning up to kiss him. It’s the first soft kiss of the morning. It’s sweeter than it has any right to be.

“I need to shower,” Dan says, his breath still heavy. He shuffles off of Phil and stands on shaking legs. “I’m filthy.”

“Okay,” Phil says, brain still too hazy to make the joke Dan had hand-delivered to him.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Dan says from the door.

“Okay.” He’s already half-asleep.

*

The nap and orgasm had done a lot for Dan’s hangover, he realises as he stands under the shower spray, finally rinsing the grime of last night off of him.

He’s feeling good. He’s lost the restlessness that he feels when he’s away from Phil. He knows he’s right in the next room and that’s so much closer than most days that he feels drunk off of it. It’s a far more manageable drunk than he’d felt a few hours ago. This is one that can settle in his stomach and linger for the next few days, keeping him warm and keeping his smiles ready.

He takes some tablets to ward off what’s left of his headache and slips back into Phil’s room. He’s lucky and doesn’t bump into anyone while wrapped in a towel on the way.

He wants to laugh when he sees Phil is asleep again, but stifles it. He borrows a pair of Phil’s pyjamas, figuring he’s owed since he can’t wear his come-covered trackies until they’re washed. Then he crawls back into Phil’s bed as he had earlier.

When he wakes up a second time in Phil’s bed, Dan thinks it might be late enough in the day that they have the house to themselves. Then he remembers he doesn’t actually know if Phil’s dad was going to be out for the day, just his mum.

Phil stirs under him and says, “You’re really here,” groggily.

Dan laughs. “Didn’t think I was?”

“Thought it was a dream.”

“Then it is a good dream.”

Phil shoves him, laughing. “Too early for _Lord of the Rings_ references.”

“Not too early to eat though,” Dan sits up even though his joints are cracking, begging him not to. “I’m starving, Lester. Feed me.”

“Alright, alright,” Phil says, sitting up as well and pulling Dan in for a kiss. “You’re in luck, when my mum went to the shops the other day I remembered to ask her for Crunchy Nut since we were out last time you were up.”

“You did?” Dan asks, and his voice feels heavier than it should be at such a little thing. He’s hoping Phil doesn’t notice.

He needs to stop feeling like he’s going to cry every time Phil does something nice for him.

Nice people do nice things. They just do.

Just because Dan has felt deprived of any and all nice things lately doesn’t mean he needs to cry every time Phil buys the cereal he likes or drops a kiss on his forehead or waits until he’s sat down to start a movie. It’s the lowest of low bars, being a nice person. Yet Dan thinks Phil’s probably the nicest person he’s ever met.

“Course I did,” Phil laughs.

Later, when they’re sitting at Phil’s kitchen table with their chairs pushed close together so he can fling his legs over Phil’s lap, Dan thinks that he feels…something. Something different, something strong. Something he can’t even really name.

They’re talking about everything and nothing, like they always do. About how the weather report said there’ll be thunderstorms in a few days and how they want to watch them from the Lester’s conservatory. About the video games they’re going to spend the next week playing until their hands cramp and their vision doubles. About the LA footage they need to edit and eventually upload. About why foxes have been mating outside Phil’s window, and why foxes aren’t kept as pets, and whether foxes would be more like dogs or cats when domesticated (a surprising amount of fox talk). And the moment is settling into Dan’s very bones in a way that he can’t define, other than that it’s different.

He’s not even really sure what the difference is. He’s been into Phil for ages; he’s been in love with him for months.

But this, it’s different somehow. It’s sturdier; it’s solid.

They’d been to Blackpool and Portugal and LA. The visit after this they’ll be going to Jamaica. It’s a lot— it’s exciting and every time they see one another it’s wildly special. It’s a whirlwind of high energy.

But something slots into place this time, something about waking up in Phil’s bed with nowhere to go and nothing to do except enjoy this moment of proximity. Something about a visit that isn’t a holiday, a visit that is homebound unless they slip as far away as Manchester for the day. It feels different.

Dan’s thinking he likes it.

He really likes it.

He wants comfortable domesticity with Phil, and what a stupid fucking thought that phrase feels like when it pops into his head, because he’s barely nineteen years old! _Comfortable domesticity_ — Jesus Christ!

And yet, that’s the plan…isn’t it?

He got his unconditional acceptance to the University of Manchester back in February. He’ll be moved into the halls in September. Phil will be living in the city by August. 300km will be reduced to 5km.

It’s madness; it’s something he wants so badly he can feel his bones aching for it.

If it were anyone but him making this move for anyone but Phil, he’d think they were out of their goddamn minds. And maybe he is. But it doesn’t matter. Comfortable domesticity? It’s his for the taking, and fuck, he’s gonna take it.

“I can’t believe I get a whole extra day and a half with you,” Phil says smiling, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder.

“Soon a day and a half will feel like nothing,” Dan says.

Phil nods. “Soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

“But soon.” Phil kisses him. “Then you’ll never have to wake up before the sun again to catch a train to me.”

“Fuck, babe, thank God,” Dan laughs. “I dunno when I’ll be drunk enough to think that’s a good idea again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/180525393889/i-wonder-how-biology-can-explain-rating-e-word) !


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